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CSU leaders stump for more funding

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — It will take a coalition to build public support for increasing funding for higher education.

Less than a month after officially taking the reins at Colorado State University, Tony Frank and Joe Blake hit the road this week to carry a message of need to business groups in Steamboat Springs and Glenwood Springs.

And Gov. Bill Ritter, Blake and University of Colorado president Bruce Benson recently discussed building a team to focus attention on the finances of the state's universities, CU Regents spokesman Ken McConnellogue said.

Blake and Frank said getting public support for changes needed to increase funding — which could include a tax hike — will require a campaign similar to the one waged for Referendum C in 2005.

That push crossed party lines and brought together politicians, business groups and others, including Blake, who was then at the helm of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, and Benson, then a oil and gas developer.

The campaign resulted in a five- year timeout from revenue restrictions set by Colorado's Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, or TABOR. Referendum C expires at the end of 2010, and the restrictions will go back into effect.

Legislators understand the problems faced by the state's colleges, Frank said. But constitutional spending limits place constraints on how they can dole out funds.

Benson, who said he voted for TABOR, which requires voter approval of tax increases, said he couldn't rule out an effort to boost taxes "if that is what it takes.

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"We have got to do something because we are in a world of hurt," he said.

Tuition hikes in place

Tuition and other college costs have risen steadily in Colorado and throughout the nation as states cut back on the subsidies they provide.

Tuition increases have been regular at CSU since 2001, the most recent a 9 percent hike for in-state residents at the Fort Collins campus for the 2009-2010 fiscal year. For the next school year, in-state undergraduate students there will pay $2,411 a semester in tuition.

The University of Colorado Board of Regents also voted recently to increase tuition at its campuses, the third hike in the past three years.

At CU's Boulder campus, undergraduate tuition will rise 3.9 percent for residents for the next school year. Tuition rates vary by program at each of the campuses, but average annual increase for full-time resident undergraduates in the arts-and-sciences program would be $248.

The tuition increases are radically changing the way public universities are funded, Frank said.

"We have become complacent in the quiet, slow privatization of higher education," Frank told a group of Rotarians in Steamboat Springs. "I don't think that this is a decision that should be made unconsciously.

"The impact for a family paying their kids' education is dramatic, so we have a decision to make. We don't want to wake up one morning and say, you know, half our population can't afford to go to school."

CSU's Board of Governors named Frank president of its Fort Collins campus and Blake its system chancellor on June 24; they took office on July 1. Frank had been the interim president since November.

When Blake was president and chief executive of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, he led the coalition that fought for Referendum C.

That campaign required educating the public about the state's budgetary constraints. Securing funding for higher education will require similar outreach, Blake said. "We need to help the public make a decision."

Taxing the system

A University of Denver study released last week found that funding for prisons, Medicaid and schools — including K-12 and higher education — gobble 76 percent of the state's $7.5 billion general fund. A decade ago, that percentage was 54 percent.

A requirement that state spending for public schools increase by at least the rate of inflation each year and the TABOR amendment account for much of the problem.

The Gallagher Amendment, which keeps taxable values of residential property lower than actual market values, causes the state's share of funding for K-12 schools to rise compared with that paid by local districts, according to the study.

And a state tax cut in the late 1990s reduced revenues by an amount that would equal $700 million a year today.

"What we have now doesn't work and I don't know what the right answer is," Frank said, adding that there needs to be a public discussion of state finances. "At some point, legislators and the business community will (reach consensus) on something that they think will be acceptable to the people of Colorado."

"I would hope that the thoughts are not to try and build additional taxes but to try to reorganize what has already been allocated," said Dax Mattox, who owns a State Farm Insurance agency in Steamboat Springs. "We need to get smarter rather than just come back to the till every time."

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